Social thermoregulation theory posits that modern human relationships are pleisiomorphically organized around body temperature regulation. In two studies (N = 1755) designed to test the principles from this theory, we used supervised machine learning to identify social and non-social factors that relate to core body temperature. This data-driven analysis found that complex social integration (CSI), defined as the number of high-contact roles one engages in, is a critical predictor of core body temperature. We further used a cross-validation approach to show that colder climates relate to higher levels of CSI, which in turn relates to higher CBT (when climates get colder). These results suggest that despite modern affordances for regulating body temperature, people still rely on social warmth to buffer their bodies against the cold.

TweetNew research finds that over-the-counter (OTC) analgesics influence more than pain. What should policymakers and the public know? This review discusses the small body of scientific research behind the headlines. We explain why researchers began investigating whether OTC pain medications might do more than dull physical sensations and detail the methodologies that researchers used to arrive at their conclusions. We then turn our attention to societal implications and advocate for further research to address important unanswered questions. Key Points OTC Pain MedicationsVarious medications help people manage pain. Many belong to a class of drugs called analgesics. Opioids are typically viewed as the most effective analgesics for severe pain, but they are addictive and require a prescription (Ballantyne, 2017;Ventafridda, Saita, Ripamonti, & De Conno, 1985). In contrast, OTC analgesics are nonaddictive and can be purchased from a wide range of stores without the approval of a physician. Popular OTC analgesics include acetaminophen (paracetamol, Tylenol) and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), aspirin (Bayer), and naproxen (Aleve). As an indicator of how important these drugs are to the public, acetaminophen tops the chart of frequently used OTC and prescription medications. NSAIDs are also high on the list (Kaufman, Kelly, Rosenberg, Anderson, & Mitchell, 2002). AbstractRecent research at the intersection of social psychology and psychopharmacology is raising new questions about some of our favorite over-the-counter (OTC) pain medications. This work suggests that drugs like acetaminophen and ibuprofen might influence how people experience emotional distress, process cognitive discrepancies, and evaluate stimuli in their environment. These studies have the potential to change our understanding of how popular pain medications influence the millions of people who take them. However, this research is still in its infancy. Further studies are necessary to address the robustness of reported findings and fully characterize the psychological effects of these drugs.

Minimal group paradigms tend to involve contrived group distinctions, such as dot estimation tendencies and aesthetic preferences. Researchers assume that these novel category distinctions lack informational value. Our research tests this notion. Specifically, we used the classic overestimator versus underestimator and Klee versus Kandinsky minimal group paradigms to assess how category labels influence minimal group responses. In Study 1, we show that participants represented ingroup faces more favorably than outgroup faces, but also represented overestimator and underestimator category labels differently. In fact, the category label effect was larger than the intergroup effect, even though participants were told that estimation tendencies were unrelated to other cognitive tendencies or personality traits. In Study 2, we demonstrate that Klee and Kandinsky were also represented differently, but in this case, the intergroup effect was stronger than the category label effect. In Studies 3 and 4, we examined effects of category labels on how participants allocate resources to, evaluate, and ascribe traits to ingroup and outgroup members. We found both category label and intergroup effects when participants were assigned to overestimator and underestimator groups. However, we found only the intergroup effect when participants were assigned to Klee and Kandinsky groups. Together, this work advances but does not upend understanding of minimal group effects. We robustly replicate minimal intergroup bias in mental representations of faces, evaluations, trait inferences, and resource allocations. At the same time, we show that seemingly arbitrary category labels can imply characteristics about groups that may influence responses in intergroup contexts.

In the Human Penguin Project ( N = 1755), 15 research groups from 12 countries collected body temperature, demographic variables, social network indices, seven widely-used psychological scales and two newly developed questionnaires ( the Social Thermoregulation and Risk Avoidance Questionnaire (STRAQ-1) and the Kama Muta Frequency Scale (KAMF)). They were collected to investigate the relationship between environmental factors (e.g., geographical, climate etc.) and human behaviors, which is a long-standing inquiry in the scientific community. More specifically, the present project was designed to test principles surrounding the idea of social thermoregulation , which posits that social networks help people to regulate their core body temperature. The results showed that all scales in the current project have sufficient to good psychometrical properties. Unlike previous crowdsourced projects, this dataset includes not only the cleaned raw data but also all the validation of questionnaires in 9 different languages, thus providing a valuable resource for psychological scientists who are interested in cross-national, environment-human interaction studies.

Contemporary society is saturated with negative representations of racial and ethnic minorities. Social science research finds that exposure to such negative stereotypes creates stress above and beyond pre-existing effects of income inequality and structural racism. Neuroscience studies in animals and humans show that life stress modulates brain responses to rewards. However, it is not known whether contending with negative representations of one’s social group spills overs to influence reward processing. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the effects of stigmatizing negative stereotypes on neural responding to the anticipation and consumption of monetary gains and losses in a Mexican American sample. Machine learning analyses indicated that incentive-related patterns of brain activity within the nucleus accumbens differed between Mexican Americans subjected to negative stereotypes and those who were not. This effect occurred for anticipating both gains and losses. Our work suggests that rhetoric stigmatizing Latinos and other minorities could alter how members of such groups process incentives in their environment. These findings contribute to our understanding of the linkage between stigmatizing experiences and motivated behavior, with implications for well-being and health.